Daily Calories, really that low?

Saints · February 2010

Hi all,

OK I'm a bit confused here acording to MFP my daily calories intake should be 1200 which seems really low to me. Im a 26 year old male, 5ft 8 and currently weigh 11st 8lbs. I only want to lost about a stone (10st 5-8ish would be ideal). I have a office job so do sit most of the day but I'm active outside of work I play football (soccer) 2-3 times a week at a good level and on those days MFP says I should eat about 1000 cals more which is fair enough.

Getting back to my original point is 1200 cals enough for me even on a day I do nothing? So far, bar my first week, I've steadly put on weight nothing massive for example last week I was 160.4 this week I was 160.8 (sorry to keep going back and forth between measurement but MFP doesn't do st and lbs). Before anyone suggests it I weigh myself once a week on a Saturday morning as soon as I get up to try and get the reading as accurate as possible.

Anyways thats enough blab from me if anyone has got any ideas or tips looking forward to hearing them.

Cheers.

justycrusty · February 2010

Interesting post, I look forward to hearing the feedback on this one - I am in a simliar situation. I am 25, 5ft 5 and weight just under 9 stone. I also am working towards a MFP target of 1200 a day. I do very little exercise (about 15/20 minute walk everyday) and also have an office job.

Something else I find very frustrating, is the sugar alowance. For breakfast I have a 250ml innocent smoothie - already at this stage I have exceeded my daily sugar allowance.

Saints, sorry that I don't have any ideas / tips to advise you really! Looking forward to hearing some though!

jaycee76 · February 2010

Work out what your BMR (Your BMR is how many calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day — basically, how many calories you burn just to stay alive) is. If you don't have masses to lose then don't go below this AND EAT all exercise calories. It could be that when you put in your goals you wanted to lose more than 1lb per week so it automatically has to take it to the lowest number of calories a body should have.
You can set your own goals (I have) to the amount of calories you think. Try it at whatever your BMR is and you can always reduce if you don't lose.
Good luck, Hope I helped x

beasy22 · February 2010

Hi Saints,

I'm in a similar situation and my target intake a day is 1200, which i have to admit is a struggle.

I have a office job so I'm fairly inactive throughout the day but i do go to the gym about 3-4 times a week so exercise and stay active as much as i can when I'm not at work.

I don't have any advise for you Saints but I'm really interested in reading the responses you receive, in particular help/ tips for evening meals.

Good luck to you both.

jaycee76 · February 2010

I should have also said try a few different sites to get an average of your bmr. You may find that better than using just this one - mine was over 100 cals less on here than my average on others x

bump063 · February 2010

Well the first two days I cut my calories down to 1200, and I have a lot of pounds to lose, like a hundred, and I gained 4 pounds....It has been very hard getting back down to that 1200 calories mark. I have been up and down 4 pounds since I started and currently I am down 0.4 pounds since I started a month ago. I was doing better when I was eating chocolate.

SHBoss1673 · February 2010

I'm sorry, are you saying that you are a 162 lb male that's 26 years old and you want to lose weight? That's interesting.

well, what ever the case I can say with a high degree of confidence that 1200 calories is way too low. First, you're not overweight, and nowhere near obese, and unless you have a medical condition, you're burning at least 2200 calories a day at maintenance, there's no way your body can support a 1000 calorie deficit. You should probably be at 1800 calories at least.

I would read this, then maybe you'll understand a little better.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10665-newbies-please-read-me-2nd-edition

justycrusty · February 2010

Oh Saints I didn't see the part you said you were male, I am a 25 year old female, 60 kilos!
SHBoss I did think 1200 was quite low alright, as I do not really need to loose much weight.
I suppose I will just try and work towards 1200 as that's the goal that was given to me, and if I go over it not stress too much. Days that I keep to it though I feel so satisfied, and not that hungry either.

SHBoss1673 · February 2010

Oh Saints I didn't see the part you said you were male, I am a 25 year old female, 60 kilos!
SHBoss I did think 1200 was quite low alright, as I do not really need to loose much weight.
I suppose I will just try and work towards 1200 as that's the goal that was given to me, and if I go over it not stress too much. Days that I keep to it though I feel so satisfied, and not that hungry either.

you should question if the goal is correct, MFP doesn't evaluate whether goals are correct for someone. I'm not saying it's right or not, but you should look at it and really think about whether that goal is right for you. I wrote this up, it may help.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

Saints · February 2010

Thanks all for the responses!

SHBoss1673 - I know it sounds a bit funny losing weight but basically I played football from about 5 years old till I was about 22/23 then took a 2 year break and during this time basically did nothing I got into motorbikes which, while a lot of fun :-), doesn't burn that many calories. Then footy started calling to me again so I decided to get back into it at which point I realised I'd put on about 1.5 stone (which for two years of doing bugger all and eating crap isn't to bad but I wanted to get back into my previous shape) I'm just trying to shed that extra fat I gained and start putting muscle back on. But I've been trying to sort my diet first rather than just hit the weights and hope for the best. I don't know if this is the best way or not but I had to start somewhere.

I've just resigned for a club I used to play for before my break and they are looking for me to lower my body fat and up my strengh and power. I've been trying to use MFP to get the diet sorted and lost some fat and then introduce weight sessions to build up muscle. I usually do 1 weights session 2-3 football training sessions and a game per week at the mo.

Sorry for that rambling but thought it might help to give some background, apologies if it didn't :-)

Saints · February 2010

Well I've done a bit more reading and used the following formula to calculate my BMR (I used imperial):

BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years) (Metric)
BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year ) (Imperial)

This gave me 1762 cals as my base cals just to stay alive I've then multiplied this by 1.2 as I have a office job (sedentary)
This gave me 2114 which I believe is my maintenance cals on a day with no excercise.
I then took away 500 (which seemed to be the recommendation) to create a deficit which game me 1614.

So I think I'm going to create my own goal now using 1600 as the daily allowance. I did read that men shouldn't go below 1800 cals a day and women shouldn't go below 1200 cals a day. So I'm tempted to start at 1800 a day and see how I do, don't know if anyone has any suggestions on that? But it would still be a deficit so I should still lose weight.

SHBoss1673 · February 2010

Well I've done a bit more reading and used the following formula to calculate my BMR (I used imperial):

BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years) (Metric)
BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year ) (Imperial)

This gave me 1762 cals as my base cals just to stay alive I've then multiplied this by 1.2 as I have a office job (sedentary)
This gave me 2114 which I believe is my maintenance cals on a day with no excercise.
I then took away 500 (which seemed to be the recommendation) to create a deficit which game me 1614.

So I think I'm going to create my own goal now using 1600 as the daily allowance. I did read that men shouldn't go below 1800 cals a day and women shouldn't go below 1200 cals a day. So I'm tempted to start at 1800 a day and see how I do, don't know if anyone has any suggestions on that? But it would still be a deficit so I should still lose weight.

Far more reasonable. Good job! I wouldn't see a problem with you starting at 1800, I wouldn't expect a pound a week though, not for someone with only about 20 or so pounds to lose. You might do that for the first 2 or 3 weeks, but just so you know, it will probably slow down after that, especially as you approach the 10 pound mark.

jaycee76 · February 2010

bump

Daily Calories, really that low?

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